Saquon Barkley: ‘Being patient’ against Chiefs will be key to getting Eagles’ rushing attack back on track
Barkley managed just 60 yards on 18 carries against Dallas and didn't fare much better against the Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX. “We’re one block away,” Eagles tackle Jordan Mailata said.
It’s only Week 2, and Jordan Mailata already feels like a broken record.
For the last two games of Eagles football — including the Super Bowl win over the Kansas City Chiefs in February — the run game has been discussed and dissected, both by the team and by the public. In that pair of contests, Saquon Barkley hasn’t been as prolific as he was for the majority of his first season with the Eagles.
In the championship game, Barkley rushed for 57 yards on 25 carries (2.3 yards per carry, his lowest clip in 2024 between the regular season and playoffs). The season opener against the Dallas Cowboys wasn’t much better. Barkley, the 2024 offensive player of the year, finished with 60 yards on 18 attempts.
Mailata repeated a refrain on Thursday that has defined the Eagles’ last two group performances in the run game.
“We’re one block away,” Mailata said. “You watch the tape, you can see it on the film.”
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Mailata and the rest of the Eagles’ rushing attack will attempt to rebound on Sunday when they take on the Chiefs in the Super Bowl rematch. It could be easier said than done. Though the Chiefs lost their season opener to the Los Angeles Chargers, 27-21, their run defense showed no regression from last season.
Chargers rookie running back Omarion Hampton had a challenging debut in São Paulo, Brazil. The Chiefs limited Hampton, the No. 22 overall draft pick out of North Carolina, to just 48 yards on 15 carries. Defensive tackle Chris Jones and inside linebacker Nick Bolton were on the front lines of the effort to quell Hampton, registering two “stops” apiece, per Pro Football Focus, which are tackles that constitute failures for the offense.
When Barkley watched the film of the Chiefs’ season opener, he saw a team with a very similar run-stopping prowess that he remembered from the Super Bowl.
“They’re really good,” Barkley said Thursday. “For me, I look forward to it. It’s going to be a challenge, but there’s things running backs can do to set up blocks. You can watch film of guys who aren’t disciplined, and I can manipulate them.
“They don’t really do that. So it forces me to be disciplined. Take what they give me, not only in the run game, but just the offense in general. Being patient is kind of the theme for us this week, and when we get the opportunity, make them pay for it.”
Those opportunities didn’t come frequently for Barkley in Week 1. The Cowboys stacked the box (eight-plus defenders) on 66.7% of his rushing attempts, according to Next Gen Stats. That was three times the rate that Barkley faced last season (20.6%). It was also the highest clip he had ever seen in an NFL contest since he was drafted in 2018.
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Barkley said he is used to teams loading up to limit him. It comes with the territory of leading the league in rushing yards (2,005) in 2024.
Still, while Barkley gave credit to the Cowboys for their defensive efforts last Thursday, he said that “more times than not, it always comes down to us” in their run game execution.
“We’ve got to do a better job in the little things, including myself, and it always starts with myself, especially in the run game,” Barkley said. “And just get ready for next week and the challenge we have against Kansas City.”
Those little things include the aforementioned blocking that Mailata lamented. Against the Cowboys, the Eagles averaged -0.9 yards per carry before contact on runs between the tackles, which is their lowest rate since 2017, per Next Gen Stats. Last season, the team rushed for 1.6 yards before contact per carry on those runs, the eighth-most in the league.
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Despite last week’s results, Barkley said his confidence hasn’t wavered in the players up front that pave the way for his success.
“I might be naive, but I’m just super confident in those guys up front and our play calling, and then myself that I always believe we’re one block away,” Barkley said. “So every time I touch the ball, every time we’re in the run game, I feel like we have the ability to make a big one pop.
“Every game is not going to be 100, 150 yards. And my goal, like I said before, is not to rush 2,000 yards. It’s to win football games. We were able to do that, and now we’ve got to go to Kansas City in a tough environment and find a way to get another one.”